V.H.F Radio is so much more than a handheld on F.M.
I am an odd ball, there now you have it in writing. I am not very interested in operation via repeaters. Yet I built circuitry for the first repeater, GB3NH in town. I have been actively involved in tests on various other repeater projects and ongoing tests. As a technical project per se, fine, but their usage is rarely within the original concept of their purpose.
It saddens me to see new and old operators who's sole achievement on V.H.F. is to get a poor signal into the local V.H.F. or U.H.F. repeater, and there be daily battered by the antics of the low ignorami scum who lurk upon it. Only to declare that "Amateur Radio has gone down hill".
When I first came on 2 meters my locals were in the next two adjacent counties. Yes we chatted in our lunch hours , using home made or modified P.M.R. A.M. rigs and no more than 10 Watts. I carried an 8 ele beam in the car and a 4 section mast which I slipped up before the lunchbox came out. A regular net member was in Nottingham (only 95Km away).
Down hill, I should say so. Now locals abound, pay fortunes for their rigs and put a scratchy signal into a well sited repeater at 2Km. What do they have to talk about, well, how much they spent on the radio, and who puts their antenna plugs on for them.
The radio performance is so much better now. Leave the low life to play fools on the repeaters {you see they do serve a useful purpose, they won't bother us where we are going} get a horizontal beam up with the ability to rotate. I rotated by hand for at least 15 years due to lack of funds.
Turn the MODE switch to SSB, (see you can push that button and the radio does not melt). There ARE like minded experimenters out there in this country and on the continent all contactable on low power.
Modern technology put to work in Ham Radio.
So they send a probe to Mars and get cracking photographs back. Must be a BIG powerful radio they send up there. No of course not, they could be less powerful than those scratchy signals into the local repeater at 2Km. The secret is in the technology. Using specialised coding methods for the data and precise timing, very low signals below the noise level can be decoded.
I set out to see what can be done on 6 Meters with no more than 25 Watts. Using my 5 element beam I have worked North into Finland, South to the African coast of Spain and Italy, West to Slovakia and the Russian States. By golly the station in Southern Spain was there every day for weeks on end. Two clicks of the switch on that rig and I am back to 6m FM and the local repeater, yes there are locals struggling to do the 2Km trip.
K1JT, Joe Taylor, author of WSJT software. Thank You.
There is much talk about Aircraft Scatter working. G3PPT has developed SlowfeldXPAS to utilise this. I have tried the Slowfeld on H.F. and the mode works well. As yet no VHF signals have been heard. Sked times and frequencies are needed from suitably equipped and sited stations.
6m,2m,70cm,23cm SSB,SSTV,PSK,WSJT Skeds drop me an e-mail please. If you cannot hear stations in Northampton but you can see the North South UK air corridor I would like to try Aircraft Reflection skeds on 2m SlowFeld. I can see the aircraft reflections on the Angus beacon GM3ANG.
(c) G3ZJO 2006 All material is the intelectual property of the author,all opinions are solely personal,true and accurate to the knowledge experience and observations of the writer